Quote:
Perpetrating the myths
By Liverpudlian
Date: 23/10/2007
Unless we play them in a cup competition, I see Everton play twice a season, I couldn't tell you what their acknowledged first eleven is and apart from Stubbs, Johnson & Neville, wouldn't recognise one of their players if they knocked on my front door.
I view Everton with the same indifference as Aston Villa, Newcastle or Fulham. They are just another middle of the table club, here only to make up the numbers.
Unfortunately due to their presence in the city, what I do see and hear) on a very regular basis, is their fans. I work alongside them, I have them as friends and I have listened to their inane drivel both first hand & in the media for more years than I care to remember.
Evertonians, Blue noses or whatever you want to call them are a breed apart with an unhealthy attitude matched only by their compatriots in the blue side of Manchester. But whereas Citeh fans are at least blessed with a sense of humour & a semblance of humility, our learned brethren from across the park take themselves far too seriously and expect everyone else to do the same with their club.
You see Everton are never beaten fair and square. Should they lose, it is always courtesy of bad refereeing decisions, bad luck or circumstances way beyond their control. Furthermore, because they do suffer these injustices on such a regular basis, they all seem have a built in set of self-defence mechanisms designed to maintain that feeling of well-being & status as a bitter blue.
Firstly they all seem to have selective memory syndrome & an ability to talk-up their club regardless of form or position in the league. They retain the double whammy in that they can always draw solace on the occasions when we lose & they are orgasmic should we lose in a final. You see your average Everton Fan gains as much comfort from us losing than them winning. Our defeat in Athens meant as much as any result in their illustrious history. The prospect of us being crowned Champions of Europe so soon after the "fix" in Istanbul would have taken some explaining away (even in their deluded minds) so the result brought as much pleasure across the park as it did in the streets of Milan.
In decrying every trophy that we have ever won over the last forty years as lucky, there are now 3 generations who have the notion implanted in their very psyche that referees and the various football bodies are all on our payroll & if that is not enough, we even get help from more celestial bodies. A work colleague of mine maintains that we are "in league with the Devil" and has made that statement with total conviction for at least the last thirty years. He is convinced with every fibre in his body that there is a different agenda at work here and everyone & everything conspires to help us.
This mentality of explaining away the disparity in the silverware count gains credibility as each dyed in the (blue) wool baby comes into this world, only to be brain washed by air brushing the reasons for our success over the years and implanting a single minded perverted bias.
The banning of English teams post-Heysel obviously affected Everton as much as anyone. Their team of the mid eighties was the only one in living memory with any sort of ability and most blues consider this team were good enough to conquer Europe and that may well have been the case but would that notion also not have applied to our Barnes, Beardsley & Aldridge side?
The "friendly" derbies became a thing of the past during the nineties and there can be little doubt that the banning was the catalyst to what has transpired since but will they ever let it lie?
They say that fans get the club they deserve and it is certainly true in their case. Wyness and Kenwright have become laughing stocks over the years with the many "missed" transfer targets and aborted attempts to leave Goodison. Just like a broken clock is right twice in every 24 hours though, even Everton have had cause to celebrate courtesy of a good season or a fluke derby win. So what do they do? Magnify it out of all proportion by bringing out memento DVDs in some vain attempt to even up the count at the football section at HMV. So when they beat Liverpool 3-0 for the best win in 40 years, amazingly a DVD was out in days. Likewise, the dodgy qualification for the champions league for the only time in a generation brought about a commemorative DVD, but in doing so they were too smug to avoid the pitfalls. By trying to be smart arses & calling it "Champions league we're having a laugh" they were nicely primed for ridicule. When yet another refereeing decision robbed them of the expected cash windfall, nobody was laughing at all, or were they?
Kenwright's script writers failed miserably in the ploy to harmonise the fans by calling themselves the "Peoples club" in a vain attempt to convince everyone of their percentage local fan base in the city. Sounding, now, like some latter day "Walton British Legion" they will obviously hope to avoid transferring all those empty match-day seats & unsold season tickets when they "allegedly" move to Kirkby because every little helps.
In order to ease the anxiety in the build up to derby matches, military rhetoric like "dogs of war" and "battling in midfield" rallies the troops on a ground where once Alex Young played. An actual derby match at Goodison, though, is a sight to behold. There is supporting your team and there is this. Every time one of our lads picks up the ball on the touchline for a throw in or corner he is subjected to a torrent of abuse that is which is way over the top. Grown men, not kids, their faces contorted and grotesque borne out of years of inequality, let out a pent up stream of anger & frustration. A feature, peculiar to Goodison, resonates round those quaint wooden stands with every challenge. Sounding like demented crows feeding in a cornfield, the strange "waah " noise booms out from all sides demanding a free kick with every tackle, regardless of what has actually happened. If the award is not given, the tirade begins on the referee who is, of course, anti-Everton before he has even walked onto the pitch. With the chips on their shoulders bigger than their brand new replica shirts, they sing the song to Stevie and though their talisman was Duncan Ferguson, they actually have the nerve to call our captain a thug.
Again on Saturday we saw a Liverpool win and surprise, surprise we again have winging from the Everton camp that they were robbed. Why must there always be a debate when Everton get beaten? Do they still believe the ******** they come out with or is it because desperate times call for desperate measures? Their tactics remain, apparently, to get the ball into the box quickly, jump or back into your opponents, fall down, create confusion, look for the second ball or as a last resort claim a penalty.
School of science?
They tell me Arteta is a good player. If that is so why is he wasting his with this undisciplined rabble?
Yet again, they were reduced to nine men in a derby match as a direct result of their tactics and the fact that they are simply not good enough. We were playing poorly and again they blew it by having men sent off when in a winning position. The furore inevitably and always surrounds the refereeing decisions but they fail to see that, as usual Reina had practically nothing to do whilst Andriy twice, JAR & Dirk should have added to our tally.
In a perverted sort of way, another derby defeat will suit the bitters who will write off the defeat in the usual manner by the addition of another chapter in their book of perceived injustices to read to their kids with the other fantasies at bed time.
The bare facts are that Everton no longer take on Liverpool by playing football. They have had too many defeats in the past by taking us on & Moyes is at least good enough to recognise that fact. So by continually ensuring his team promote confrontation & controversy on the pitch, their fans can argue for equality off it.
Big club? My arse.
Satisfying times to be a red.
Liverpudlian
